


No More Goddamn Sobriety

by tisfan



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Flirting, M/M, Missing Scene, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recreational Drug Use, Time Travel, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25902850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Klaus was sober...And then he was in the middle of a war and the number of dead were uncountable...
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 83
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	No More Goddamn Sobriety

**Author's Note:**

> For Banned Together Bingo Square "Let's Roll Another Joint"

It didn’t take Klaus very long to decide that even trying to stay sober was a serious mistake during a _god damn war_. He’d landed in freaking Vietnam and everything had been so loud and so dangerous and so deadly, he’d obeyed orders because at least someone was telling him what to _do_. And because the Hargreeves children were conditioned to obey orders.

Maybe staying sober -- those time lord crazies had kept him tied up long enough that most of the drugs were at least out of his system -- was a good idea. The first battle he’d run into, there’d been more ghosts than soldiers, and it hadn’t taken much to push them into keeping him safe.

But then he started realizing just how many dead there were. Boys who were nineteen years old, who barely understood why they were dead, looking at him for answers?

No fucking way.

_Forget it._

No more goddamn sobriety.

The unit moved; at first it bothered Klaus that he had no idea where he was, and no idea where he was going, but as time went on, he realized no one else knew where they were going or what they were supposed to be doing when they got there, either.

The other soldiers didn’t know.

The officers didn’t know.

The goddamn dead didn’t know.

That night in Seoul, he found himself dancing to music he knew, drinking in a bar that once he’d downed a few shots of liquor, could have been anywhere in the world. Half the patrons were speaking Vietnamese and the ghosts were translating for him, whenever he was paying attention, which was almost never.

The rest were American soldiers, drinking to forget that their friends had died, that they would die.

He ended up necking with a soldier -- Dave Katz -- up against a wall, letting himself feel it. But even then, he didn’t want to feel it.

“You know where we can get some pot?” Klaus asked. Dave didn’t know, but one of the ghosts did, so he followed that man, holding Dave’s hand, as they wove through back alleys. “Here, here, you got money? I don’t have any money.”

Pot was ridiculously cheap in the Vietnam era. Or cheap in Vietnam. He thought he might have read something about that in one of Dad’s old history books. That one in five American GIs came back from Vietnam with a heroin addiction. Higher than the death toll. 

“I’ve never--”

“Aw, you never smoked a joint before?” Klaus laughed. Not in a mocking way, because he would never, but in a fond manner. Dave was adorably flustered. And he’d thought the kissing had been new. Just think of all the lovely new things he was going to get to show Dave. 

“Yeah, well, my family, they’re pretty strict,” Dave admitted. “Good, middle class values.”

“Aw, sucks for you, man,” Klaus said. “They want their apple to stay close to the tree, right? Be just like your old man. I know that feeling.” He lit the hand-rolled joint, smelling the lemon and gasoline odor. Took a hit, holding it in his lungs. Dave watched, eyes getting really round, and he wasn’t even high yet. “Anyone bother to tell them that apples are the very first sin?”

Dave laughed. “No, the very first sin is a man looking at another man.”

“That’s no sin at all, sweetheart,” Klaus said. He handed Dave the joint. “Take it in, like you’re smoking a cigarette and then hold it. It’ll take the edge off.”

Just the edge, Klaus knew. He’d have to find some of that prime grade heroin he’d read about if he wanted to stay off the edge and completely safe.

It didn’t take long for Dave to get the giggles; not even half of their first joint.

God, he was adorable.

“You know, you’re the prettiest man I have ever seen,” Dave told him.

And Klaus looked into Dave’s eyes. Maybe it was the weed talking, or the stress. But Klaus was pretty sure he’d never seen anyone prettier either.


End file.
